The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that takeovers are reshaping the North American oil and gas industry. The Globe's Andrew Willis writes that the largest U.S. energy companies are snapping up smaller rivals in a series of $20-billion-(U.S.)-plus deals. Canada's mid-tier producers -- Tourmaline, Peyto, Baytex and Crescent Point -- also spent the past six months aggressively acquiring properties with billion-dollar-plus price tags. On both sides of the border, dominant players are emerging in key regions such as the Permian basin in Texas, the Bakken in North Dakota, and Western Canada's Montney and Duvernay basins. Notably absent from the latest round of deal-making: Canada's largest oil and gas companies. Canadian Natural Resources, Suncor, Cenovus and Imperial Oil have been on the sidelines while peers take part in a flurry of merger-and-acquisition activity. This simply cannot last. The country's four largest oil and gas producers are not immune from the factors driving industry consolidation, including an investor fixation on increasing reserves and operational scale. Mr. Willis argues that before this M&A cycle is done, the country's biggest energy companies are bound to get bigger.